The benefits of flossing one's teeth are well documented. Currently, dental health professionals suggest flossing at least once per day.
Due to the advantages of such flossing procedure, there are several proposals for various types of dental floss, such as ultra-thin floss, wax coated floss, and the like. See, for example the flosses disclosed in patents such as No. 3,771,536, 3,897,795 and 4,033,365.
While successful in accomplishing objectives of removing bacteria and the like from certain portions of the teeth, these known flosses still have a shortcoming associated with performing only a single operation, to wit: flossing.
If one is going to the trouble of flossing, it would appear to be efficient if more than a single procedure is carried out. The flossing devices known to the inventor only carry out the single function of flossing.
Still further, since floss is used by winding a substantial portion thereof about the user's fingers, any coating placed on the floss which is intended to further the flossing function is wasted on the floss wound on the user's fingers. For this reason, the known flosses are even less efficient.
Accordingly, there is a need for a dental floss which is more efficient in carrying out a plurality of operations and which is not wasteful of an coating material used on the floss.
More specifically, since the benefits of fluoride treatments for teeth are also well documented, it is known to add fluoride to drinking water and to toothpaste. However, such fluoride often does not reach the lateral edge surfaces of a user's teeth since such surfaces may abut each other so tightly as to prevent the fluoride from coating such surfaces.
Therefore, there is a further need for a means to coat the lateral edge surfaces of a person's teeth with fluoride to provide such surfaces with the benefits of a fluoride treatment.